UNE partners in Biddeford community exhibition bridging coastal science and art

Faculty and students from the University of New England are joining collaborators from Art of Biddeford and the University of Maine for a new public exhibition exploring Maine’s changing coastline through the lenses of science and art.

“Sensing the Coast: An Art-Science Collaboration” opens Friday, July 10, at Building 13 of the Pepperell Mill Campus in downtown Biddeford and will remain on view through July 30. The free public exhibition explores coastal change through artwork inspired by scientific research, combining visual art, sound, photography, and community storytelling.

The exhibition grew from a collaboration between University of Maine researchers and graduate students in Intermedia before expanding to include UNE faculty and students, Art of Biddeford, and community partners. Together, the collaborators sought to make complex environmental research more accessible while highlighting the communities most directly connected to Maine’s coast.

UNE’s contributions include drone photography documenting Biddeford’s evolving coastline by undergraduate marine science students and a community climate-collage project led by faculty members Will Kochtitzky, Ph.D., Jennifer Brousseau, Ph.D., and Sarah Gorham, M.F.A., M.A.T. The exhibition also features artwork created by University of Maine Intermedia students Chloe DaSilva, Eeshita Kapadiya, Emma Larson, and Brenna Martens, whose pieces transform scientific observations into multisensory artistic experiences.

The collaboration emphasizes the work of UNE students and faculty to understand — through both science and storytelling — the impact of climate change on both Maine’s coastlines and the people who live and depend on them. 

Over the past year, Brousseau, an assistant professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Programs, and Gorham, assistant academic director and teaching professor in the School of Arts and Humanities, have collaborated on a research project at the intersection of art and social science called “Envisioning Climate Futures through Community Collaging Workshops.” 

Through their work, funded by a UNE internal grant, Brousseau, Gorham, and two undergraduate students designed multi-session collaging workshops with community members in Biddeford and Saco to help them share and discuss their personal experiences with climate change and ideal visions for the future of their communities. 

The team then followed up with participants to assess the workshops’ successes and how the events promoted learning and community building. “Sensing the Coast” features all the art that participants generated from these two community collaging workshops, as well as artist statements accompanying each piece that describe participants’ visions behind their art, Brousseau said. 

Kochtitzky, an assistant professor of geographic information systems, is a key player in the development of a multi-ecosystem network of sensors to track environmental conditions across the Saco Bay region, designed to help coastal communities better understand and adapt to climate change and shifting weather patterns. Students are integral to the formation of the network, having installed weather stations on the University’s own Ram Island, 363-acre forest, and along beaches in Biddeford Pool as well as deploying wave-tracking gauges off the coast of storm-battered Camp Ellis.

“This exhibition shows what’s possible when scientists, artists, students, and community partners work together,” Kochtitzky said. “Scientific data can tell us what’s happening along our coast, but art helps people connect with those changes in ways that are immediate and personal. Collaborations like this bring together different perspectives and create conversations that none of us could accomplish alone.”

Presented by Art of Biddeford, a community arts initiative of Heart of Biddeford, “Sensing the Coast” opens with a public reception from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, July 10, including presentations from participating student artists and scientists beginning at 7 p.m. The exhibition will also be open during Biddeford’s July Art Walk and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons through July 30. Admission is free.